ExpertDabbler

There is a tamil saying in my native which goes like ‘Virudhu patti saniyanai velai kuduthu vangaraan’.. well I did not get into this one voluntarily. It came right into my mailbox, only this time to my office mail box (vatsa..you are going to pay for it….grr).

So what is the vambu? Should RBI be ashamed of an invalid email ID it had in its website or not?

I tried to ignore this but I had some comments. As some of my regulars know, I really cannot resist revealing my ignorance:(

NV sir, with whom I am in telephone talking terms had written this post.

Well, I agree that it would’ve been better if the email had been a valid one.

That said, I would not judge RBI with an email link. Its like saying, ‘Ben Bernanke does not shave regularly, that is shameful etc’. We don’t judge Bernanke by his shaving skills or nose picking skills or whatever. Same applies for RBI too. RBI ensured that banking to a large extent remained a boring business, the way it should be, while some other central banks let some wealthy folks have fun.

In general NV sir and some other folks write only about India’s glory . I’ve written enough on this topic. There are a few who support such viewpoints. Nowadays I am inclined to think that the perception of an RI about India, and that of an USRI about India shall never meet.

The RI’s is too focused on her own micro world while a USRI always forms her perception about what the media has to say, she sees during her three week trip. Based on these sometimes true observations and sometimes confirmation bias, they somehow decide life in India is hell. Its like the way we normal persons somehow assume that a blind person can never enjoy life. We see them as lacking faculties we have and so assume they can’t possibly ever be happy in their life.

And regarding building perceptions, the media is doing an amazing job. Till last week it was H1N1 ‘pandemic’. Anyone who had followed the media in the last two weeks would’ve thought there is a massive H1N1 outbreak in Velachery area and thousands of folks are already terminally infected. Folks who had no clue about the right usage of masks were using it left, right and center. In short, it was ’social proof’ tendency in all its glory. And just to make myself clear, these are innate human tendencies played out in all the countries at various times. Eventually, people figured out that the world did not end as they initially thought. Meanwhile Jaswant Singh decided ‘enough is enough’ and did something in national interest. Next thing we know, H1N1 is slowly fading from the media’s radar.

Two people were killed by a gunman in Neelankarai yesterday. Of course this news will remain in the headlines for the next few days in the local media. And those living far outside India are at their own liberty to form opinions as to how Chennai is fast becoming a violent, brutal, unsafe city, how they’ve always known ECR is totally crime prone. When the average RI in Neelankarai is too worried about Sonia Aggarwal’s career prospects, love life, and in what way had Andrea contributed to the divorce, and how he always knew something like this would happen. The concern of the former, is it any different from the concern of the latter? Nah. All are very valid concerns.

I am a big fan of RS‘ writing.
‘The last laugh’, her first book is out
http://pothi.com/pothi/book/ramya-sethuraman-last-laugh

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Last-Laugh-a-collection-of-short-stories/125854539640

I would like to see RS reading out passages from her book in ‘Namma Landmark’ in ‘Namma Chennai’ someday

To RS,
Make sure your books are available in flipkart, infibeam etc.

Nothing to add

Yesterday was father’s ninth anniversary and that made me introspect.

What is very different about my life at age 32 than it was at 23? I think I am more active and responsible now. I fuss about a lot of things a lot less nowadays. I read more. My skin is thicker. The fact that I’ve grown a few grey strands has helped me realize that roughly 50% of my active life is already gone. Time is running out. And I’ve done practically nothing worth while. This is very similar to a student who has a lot many answers to write in the exams but finds 50% of the time is already gone.

Some dreams were reduced to mere statistics and probability in due course. I now realize that if I’ve led an ordinary first half of life, chances likely I’d lead an ordinary second half as well unless I pull off something truly special. I tend to use ‘Will’,'will not’ less often and use words like ‘probably, more likely’ more and more. I realize that the world has got its way of working, and its me who has to reconcile with the world and not otherwise.

Somewhere in this time span, life has posed me the eternal ‘Is that all there is’? question and I’ve tried to answer that. My current realization is there is nothing intrinsic in life. And there will be nothing if we do not put anything into life ourselves to make it meaningful. There is always effort pilferage. Which means there will be nothing but entropy again if my efforts to add meaning to life is slower than the pilferage. Accepting this has helped me get more involved with life while keeping my disappointments manageable.

Mistakes.. oh yeah lot of them. But Randy Pausch made me realize that at the end of the day, if I am to die very shortly, I think I’d be more disappointed about the things I had not done over the ones where I made a mistake.

On looking back, it is evident that I’ve been damn lucky in a lot of aspects in the last nine years. A lot of my bets could have gone horribly wrong as much as it went right. I do not know if my luck would continue forever, but I guess so long as I keep myself immersed in life, get my answers to ‘Is that all there is?’ question right, I’d be a happy man till the end.

Got this from my school buddy Dustin Stanley in facebook…well ‘Life is difficult’ is a famous line from a famous book and it’s famous for a reason

I am less nostalgic than most of the folks I come across but nevertheless this would be a basic reference to the 80s era.

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REFRESHING YOUR GOOD OLD MEMORIES!!!
If there was Ctrl+Z in life……..

Nostalgic memories of those ‘good old days’ – world has changed and we also changed for the world !!!

Are you missing those days? Sometimes I do

Doordarshan Logo

Doordarshan’ s Screensaver

Malgudi Days

Dekh Bhai Dekh

Ramayan

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

Turning Point

Bharath Ek Khoj

Alif Laila

Byomkesh Bakshi

Tehkikaat

He Man

Salma Sultana DD News Reader (PK - Who’s this? I don’t remember :p)

Vicco turmeric,

Nahin cosmetic
Vicco turmeric ayurvedic cream

Washin powder Nirma, Washing powder Nirma
Doodh si safedi, Nirma se aayi
Rangeen kapde bhi khil khil jaaye
Quiz Time - Siddhartha Basu

I’m a Complan Boy(Shahid Kapoor) and
I’m a Complan Girl (Ayesha Takia) - Same question as Salma. Only that this girl should have grown up now and I’d like to see.

Surabhi : Renuka Sahane and Siddharth

Then were ‘Mungerilal ke hasin sapane’ and ‘karamchand’ …’Vikram Betal’, etc.

How did one survive growing up in the 80’s and 90’s?

We had no seatbelts, no airbags..

Cycling was like a breath of fresh air…

No safety helmets, knee pads or elbow pads, with plenty of cardboards between spokes to make it sound like a motorbike…

When thirsty we only drank tap water (sathiyama true),

We also had some cheap ice stuff that we called Pepsi for some reason near Sungam Junction. It was all ours for a grand 50 paisa.

We walked to school, or sometimes we even rode our bicycle (8km up + 8km down, i stayed fit).

We had no mobile phones, but we always managed to find each other….

We did not have Play Stations, MP3, Nintendo’s, I-Pods, Video games, 99 Cable TV channels, DVD’s, Home Cinema, Home Computers, Laptops, Chat-rooms, Internet, etc …

BUT, we had REAL FRIENDS!!!!

Such were the days…

Are YOU from that generation?? If that’s the case, email this to all your friends from the same era…

How married folks still manage to be happy once in a while? If you’ve ever wondered about this question, you might have the answer in this video

My recommendations as a fellow consumer

Maverick Gym:
These guys are really good. I have been with O2 health studios for sometime. Maverick folks are more professional and serious about their business me thinks.

FORBES magazine India edition:
At Rs.50 per copy or Rs.37.50 per subscription copy, you can’t go wrong on this one. I think its worth the money. Forbes is miles ahead of the likes of Business Today.

GMAT Toppers coaching:
I came across their Ad in ‘Velachery Talk’ on a Sunday and thought let me give it a try. I have to say I was very impressed with their intro classes, much better than the Princeton experience in Adyar. Their diagnostic test was a humbling experience :). I got a grand 4 questions right out of ten. I know, me and GMAT are like Sambhar Sadham and Channa Masala, not exactly compatible now. But what the heck, I am gonna try.

These are my naive impressions. Please feel free to add, dispute, suggest something better in all of the above.

Got this from a PDF download. Speaks a lot about us Enna kodumai….

- 19% of people think they belong to the richest 1% of U.S. households
- 82% of people say they are in the top 30% of safe drivers
- 80% of students think they will finish in the top half of their class
- When asked to make a prediction at the 98% confidence level, people are right only 60-70% of the time
- 68% of lawyers in civil cases believe that their side will prevail
- Doctors consistently overestimate their ability to detect certain diseases
- 81% of new business owners think their business has at least a 70% chance of success, but only 39% think any business like theirs would belikely to succeed
- Graduate students were asked to estimate the time it would take them to finish their thesis under three scenarios: best case, expected, and worst case. The average guesses were 27.4 days, 33.9 days, and 48.6 days, respectively. The actual average turned out to be 55.5 days.
- Mutual fund managers, analysts, and business executives at a conference were asked to write down how much money they would have at retirement and how much the average person in the room would have. The average figures were $5 million and $2.6 million, respectively. The professor who asked the question said that, regardless of the audience, the ratio is always approximately 2:1
- 86% of my Harvard Business School classmates say they are better looking than their classmates

Now that the Sensex is back @ 15000 levels, the guys have started talking stocks in the office corridors again.

As contrived as it may sound, stocks are inherently risky and one can lose money in an overnight is a fact which cannot be stressed enough. And my humbling experiences are still fresh in my mind. Last year I bought 200 shares in a company called Quintegra solutions for close to 100 a share, based on, you guessed it, a tip from my friend. And I had the rare pleasure of watching it go from 94 Rs. a share to single digits in a short while. Its an indescribable emotion. The balance I have on this share right now will not even fetch me two litres of petrol.

What is fascinating to me most is that most of the folks are clueless on their holdings. They don’t even know the basics like

- the company’s business,
- the promoter,
- the profits and debts,
- the competition

These are all publicly available information for that matter.

The reasons for buying shares typically goes like,

- ‘Enakku therinja oruthar rembo naala shares pannitu irukaar, rembo nallavar….avar solvaar, avar sonna correct a irukkum.’

- ‘Broker recommend panninaan’

- ‘NDTV la potaan’

The point is not that they do not know. The point is they do not think they need to know.

If someone can’t tell a difference between a P/L account and a balance sheet, and an Adani from Ambani, why gamble with hard-earned money? This is not to say P/Ls and balance sheets are a great measure of the company’s worth in these times of fictitious books. We all know that any orangutan with a below average intelligence can pick this double entry book-keeping stuff in a matter of weeks. And orangutans like me need not necessarily make great investors. But for all its shortcomings, basic accounting knowledge is a very necessary stuff to know.

I think anyone who dabbles in stocks, must satisfy the following conditions in general.

- Know how to read the basic financial statements - P/L, Balance sheets, foot notes, etc.
- Read THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR
- Know the Inefficient Bush Theory
- Know the principle behind race-track betting
- Know that analyst research report conclusions are for the most part uttalakadi and only slightly better than ‘Raasi palan’ in our favorite daily.

This is totally apart from the economics of the business which will take a lifetime of learning. We are not going to become Rakesh Jhunjhunwala in a hurry.

This is not to guarantee that my ‘quintegra’ like experiences will never happen if these guidelines are followed. All I am saying is at least it will not be as humiliating. The more one knows and learns, the less probability of getting absolutely creamed. Speculating without knowing the basic stuff is the same as jumping in front of a speeding MTC.

What am I doing in the market nowadays? For the most part, I do what Rahul dravid would do gracefully to an out-swinger pitched on or outside the off stump - let it go.

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On the other hand, all this mundane reading about investments have taken me away from reading good ole’ fiction. I do not remember the last time I read a good novel. I started ‘Oru Puliyamarathin kadhai’ and left it hanging in the same puliya maram in the first chapter. If Sundara Ramaswamy could not make me read a novel, I don’t know who can.

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There’s a lot happening at work. Being a design lead is like the role played by Gopinath in Neeya Naana…endless pointless debates, late conf. calls, crib fests aka One on Ones…life is different nowadays. As someone I admire used to say, ‘I have never grown this old before, I am learning my lessons and I am trying my level best..’ is how I would explain now.

Note: Regarding the title, I just decided I should publish one post today.